We’ll nae’ forget you, Laddie, and we’ll be greeting you soon, but while we tarry here, sitting often alone by the fireside in the old home you loved, we won’t grieve for you, Laddie, and if we are a wee bit lonely at times, we will open the treasure box of “pleasant memories” you left us and let the joy of them fill our hearts. YOUR FATHER. _Winnetka, Ill., March 1, 1919._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dinsmore Ely _Monday, June 25, 1917._ O great day! O wonderful world! O fortunate boy! Can it be I sail for France—France, the beautiful—the romantic—the aesthetic, and France the noble—the magnificent? Yes, it is true. It is all real. The babbling crowd and gangplank and piled trunks and excited companions—the hissing, roaring, thundering whistle, the cry of shrill voices, the moving of mass, the joyous and sad faces, waving handkerchiefs, passing boats and docks, the Battery, Liberty, the open sea—and New York fades behind with the pilot boat taking back the last letters of frantically written farewells. The noise is past now; there is a strange silence as the gentle swell of a calm ocean comes to us; we become aware of the steady throb of the engine. People wander about restlessly with hands dangling at their sides. They know the past; they try to realize the present; they are ignorant of the future. We are on the great Atlantic, we are sailing to France! _Tuesday._